Clap for the Wolfman

If you are of a certain age you’ll remember that title, which is affixed to one of the most egregious suck-ups in the history of rock and roll. The Guess Who, a Canadian singles band that had a number of hits in the late 60s and early 70s and is best remembered today for their semi-rocking but ham-handed anti-war number “American Woman,” was pretty much circling the bowl by the mid 70s. Randy Bachmann left the band and formed another 70s singles band, Bachmann-Turner Overdrive, leaving former colleague Burton Cummings without much of anything, especially direction. He’d come “undun,” to quote yet another Guess Who song, when he decided to write a paean to a gravel-voiced disc jockey named Wolfman Jack. The Wolfman was a fixture on the radio in Los Angeles and had managed to parlay his shtick into a sizable role in the fine 1973 film “American Graffiti,” which helped launch the careers of Ron Howard, Harrison Ford and Suzanne Somers, among others. The Wolfman was pretty much an omnipresent feature of 1970s popular culture, between his nationally syndicated radio show and his role as host of NBC’s rock music show “The Midnight Special,” which was compelling enough (“Cool! Black Oak Arkansas is on tonight!”) to get me to switch away from “All-Star Wrestling” for my late night 70s weekend viewing. Besides all that, you had a hard time getting away from the Wolfman, because he would do voice work for just about anyone who ponied up the cash; the Wolfman regularly extolled the virtues of Fox Valley businesses and probably did the same for the good people of Scranton or Corpus Christi or Spokane. The Wolfman had a nice run but died of a heart attack in 1995 and I’d guess that most people under the age of 30 have no idea who he is.

Anyway, “Clap for the Wolfman” proved to be the last hit for the Guess Who, who have survived their late 70s oblivion quite nicely because of the prevalence of Classic Hits Radio formats; indeed, several of their songs can be heard regularly on KQRS and similarly themed stations. Meanwhile, the Wolfman is the radio equivalent of Ozymandias. Take it away, Mr. Keats:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Okay, so what the heck is all this about, anyway? You’ll find out soon enough. Tune in tomorrow; same bat time, same bat channel.